As a lower level foot soldier Wei got involved in extortion, robbery, and other crimes befitting of a triad member. Wei had to go deep undercover in order to pose as a capable recruit for the underworld forces, and he succeeded, at least for a while. The original Sleeping Dogs let you play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop tasked by his superiors with taking down a powerful triad called Sun On Yee. Luckily, Square Enix picked it up soon afterwards and re-dubbed it Sleeping Dogs, and a star was born. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), Activision decided not to move ahead with True Crime: Hong Kong and it was left with zero backing. It really intrigued me and I counted it as a game that people should definitely be on the lookout for. Then 2010 arrived and I had the rare opportunity (and treat) to play a little known title called True Crime: Hong Kong, which at that time was being developed by Activision. They tried to duplicate the same gun ballet feel with the various Max Payne games, as well as 2007’s Stranglehold, but those titles just didn’t measure up for various reasons. Namely, taking something like Hard Boiled and turning it into a video game. Video games, of course, were also a steady staple of my diet, which at one point, brought me to fantasize about what would happen if someone were to come along and marry two of my two favorite forms of entertainment. Since that last golden era of cinema, they’ve tried to replicate some of the same magic but no one has been able to capture that same essence. This time, however, I didn’t try to emulate their lead-spewing theatrics in real life or I’d be writing this article from a prison cell. When the hyper-bloody Hong Kong bullet ballet films came into their own during the 90s, mainly the ones by John Woo, such as A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and especially Hard Boiled, I was entranced by not only their fascinating storylines, but also many of the characters, portrayed by such fine actors as Tony Leung, James Wong, and of course, Chow Yun Fat. When I figured out how hard it was to stand in a horse stance for thirty minutes at a time (ouch!), without moving, I quickly moved on to saxophone lessons. I was so blown away by the cool moves and crazy powers and abilities that some of the more outrageous kung-fu characters could pull off, that I actually signed up for kung-fu lessons at one point. Well, samurai films and kung-fu flicks actually, but for the sake of this review we’ll focus on Chinese culture. I’ll be the first to admit that when I was growing up, I fed myself a steady diet of kung-fu movies.
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